2,145 research outputs found

    Otsustusprotsesside mõjutamine transkraniaalse magnetstimulatsiooniga

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    Väitekirja elektrooniline versioon ei sisalda publikatsiooneInimese käitumist kontrollivates otsustusprotsessides on oluline roll dorsolateraalsel prefrontaalkorteksil (DLPFK) ning sellega juhteteede kaudu seotud eemalasuvatel ajupiirkondadel, kuid otsustusprotsesside täpsemate neurobioloogiliste mehhanismide kohta on veel vähe teada. Otsustusprotsesside põhjalik uurimine on oluline nii täidesaatvate funktsioonide ja sihipärase käitumise mõistmiseks kui ka erinevate neuropsühholoogiale tuginevate ravimeetodite väljaarendamiseks. Käesolev väitekiri keskendus mitte-veridikaalsete otsustusprotsesside uurimisele, kasutades selleks transkraniaalse magnetstimulatsiooni (TMS) meetodit. Otsustusprotsessidega seotud DLPFK piirkondi magnetimpulssidega mõjutades on võimalik tuvastada otsustamise neurobioloogilisi korrelaate ning uurida veridikaalseid ja mitte-veridikaalseid otsusi vastandava teoreetilise mudeli paikapidavust. Uuring I näitas, et mitte-veridikaalseid otsustusprotsesse on võimalik TMS-i abil selektiivselt mõjutada, kusjuures vasakpoolne DLPFK näib olevat rohkem spetsialiseerunud mitte-veridikaalsetele kognitiivsetele otsustele kui veridikaalsetele, samas kui parempoolne DLPFK osaleb mõlemat tüüpi otsustes. Tulemused ilmestasid ka seda, et TMS rakendamine avaldab korteksi piirkondadele nii lokaalset kui distaalset, TMS lookusest eemalasuvalt realiseeruvat mõju. Uurimuses II leidis kinnitust parempoolse DLPFK oluline roll impulsiivses ja riskantses käitumises: parempoolse DLPFK neurofüsioloogilise erutuvuse pärssimine madalsagedusliku TMS-iga tõi kaasa käitumise pidurduse vähenemise ning oluliselt riskeerivama käitumisstrateegia. Uuring III kinnitas BDNF geeni olulist mõju nii mitte-veridikaalsetele otsustusprotsessidele kui ka sellele, kuidas prefrontaalsete piirkondade mõjutamine TMS-iga mitte-veridikaalset endofenotüübi mõjuga seotud käitumist muudab. Väitekirja uurimustest järeldub, et TMS meetodil DLPFK piirkondi mõjutades on võimalik otsustusprotsesse mõjutada, kuid vallanduvad käitumuslikud muutused sõltuvad nii ülesande iseloomust, ülesandega seotud kognitiivsete mehhanismide lateralisatsioonist, kui ka inimese neurobioloogilisest endofenotüübist.Human decision-making is known to depend on the prefrontal cortex and distal areas interconnected to it, but its specific neurobiological mechanisms are still largely unknown. Expanding our knowledge of decision-making processes contributes to understanding the neuropsychological principles of executive function and goal directed behaviour, as well as to advancing the clinical application of neurostimulation in this domain. Within empirical studies included in the current dissertation, repeated transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) was applied to the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) in order to evaluate potential effects on performance across various decision-making tasks. By observing how non-invasive modulation of neural activity in underlying cortical areas affects non-veridical cognition related behavioural choices, the thesis addressed the functional role of the DLPFC in decision-making processes. Results of Study I demonstrated that non-veridical and veridical decision-making both rely on the right DLPFC, whereas the left DLPFC is more specifically committed to non-veridical cognition. Study I findings also emphasised non-focal, distal effects of TMS, when applied to particularly richly interconnected cortical regions such as the DLPFC. Study II revealed that TMS-induced inhibition of the right DLPFC activity affects non-veridical risky behaviour, suggesting that the right DLPFC plays a role in execution and monitoring of performance in risky tasks with a motor response. Study III revealed that non-veridical behaviour is influenced by genetic differences related to the BDNF gene and that TMS stimulation enhances pre-existing genetically determined biases in decision-making preferences. In conclusion, decision-making behaviour can be modulated by applying TMS to the DLPFC, but the resulting behavioural effects depend on the characteristics of the task, the lateralization of task-specific cognitive mechanisms, as well as the neurobiological endophenotypes involved.https://www.ester.ee/record=b522936

    Cognition, Emotion and Behaviour: Addressing the Relationship Between Executive Functions and Decision-Making

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    Executive functions are a complex and heterogeneous group of concepts that refer to a set of diverse cognitive abilitiessuch as working memory, cognitive flexibility, planification, reasoning, problem-solving and inhibition. Moreover, decision-making maybe described as a pattern that a person uses when he or she is facing a situation where they must lean towards an option: people tendto choose one or another option considering the risks and benefits these options offer. There is evidence supporting that executivefunctions are associated with the way people make their decisions. The main aim of the present study is to review and update theseconcepts reporting evidence from the literature on the association between the cognitive, emotional, and behavioral aspects of decisionmaking.Fil: Gonzalez Aguilar, Maria Josefina. Universidad Austral. Facultad de Ciencias Biomédicas; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Rodriguez Lopez, Sofia. Universidad Austral. Facultad de Ciencias Biomédicas; ArgentinaFil: Lynch, Sofia. Universidad Austral. Facultad de Ciencias Biomédicas; ArgentinaFil: Mennella, Paula. Universidad Austral. Facultad de Ciencias Biomédicas; ArgentinaFil: Alba Ferrara, Lucia M. Universidad Austral. Facultad de Ciencias Biomédicas; Argentina. Universidad Nacional Arturo Jauretche. Unidad Ejecutora de Estudios en Neurociencias y Sistemas Complejos. Provincia de Buenos Aires. Ministerio de Salud. Hospital Alta Complejidad en Red El Cruce Dr. Néstor Carlos Kirchner Samic. Unidad Ejecutora de Estudios en Neurociencias y Sistemas Complejos. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata. Unidad Ejecutora de Estudios en Neurociencias y Sistemas Complejos; Argentin

    Decision-making impairment in emotional disorders

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    Decision-making has become the focus of increased scientific attention in recent years. Attempts to characterize decision-making deficits in unipolar mood and anxiety disorders have, however, produced conflicting results. The current study examined two types of impairment, indecisiveness and risky decision-making, in a clinical sample of individuals with depression and/or anxiety. Depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) symptoms were hypothesized to predict both self-reported indecisiveness and decision latency on behavioral tasks, with processing speed partially mediating the relationship between psychopathology and decision latency. It was hypothesized that symptoms of OCD and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) would predict advantageous performance on a task assessing risky decision-making, and that executive functioning would partially mediate the relationship between psychopathology and risky decision-making. A sample of individuals (N = 74) who had recently undergone semi-structured diagnostic interviews was recruited for the current study. All participants were diagnosed with at least one unipolar mood or anxiety disorder, with the majority meeting criteria for two or more disorders. All participants completed the same study protocol, which included self-report measures, neuropsychological tests, and computer-administered decision-making tasks. Regression analyses and latent growth modeling were used to examine associations between psychopathology, decision-making, and neuropsychological variables. Self-reported depressive symptoms and OCD symptoms predicted self-reported indecisiveness. Contrary to prediction, psychopathology (when measured dimensionally via self-report measures or operationalized as the presence or absence of a depressive disorder, GAD, or OCD) did not predict decision latency, and there was no evidence of a mediating effect of processing speed. Self-reported depressive symptoms, but not self-reported symptoms of GAD or OCD, were positively associated with ratings of decision difficulty. On a measure of risky decision-making, a diagnosis of GAD and poorer set-shifting were both associated with less improvement in performance over the course of the task, whereas a diagnosis of OCD was associated with more improvement. Results are discussed in the context of the decision-making literature. Methodological challenges to the study of decision-making are addressed and ideas for future research are proposed

    Tradução e adaptação transcultural do Game Dice Task para população brasileira

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    OBJECTIVE: The Game Dice Task (GDT) was developed to measure decision making under known risk. The aim of this study was to translate and adapt the GDT to a Brazilian population. METHOD: After the GDT was translated and back-translated to Brazilian Portuguese and evaluated by eight bilingual judges, 175 Brazilian adults were divided into two groups - 160 healthy volunteers and 15 traumatic brain injury (TBI) patients - and had completed the GDT. RESULTS: Differences between genders, but not age, were observed in the healthy volunteer sample. Males more frequently chose a combination of three dice while females preferred four dice. TBI patients were more impulsive than healthy volunteers; they less frequently chose a combination of three dice and made more risky decisions. CONCLUSION: Because of the rigorous process used to translate and adapt the GDT and the differences observed between patients with TBI and healthy volunteers, the Brazilian GDT was considered satisfactory for research purposes.OBJETIVO: O Game Dice Task (GDT) foi desenvolvido para avaliar a tomada de decisão de indivíduos sob situações específicas de risco conhecido. O objetivo deste estudo foi traduzir e adaptar o GDT para a população brasileira. MÉTODOS: Após ter sido traduzido e retrotraduzido para o português e ter sido avaliado por oito juízes bilíngues, 175 adultos brasileiros completaram o GDT - 160 adultos saudáveis e 15 pacientes com traumatismo cranioencefálico (TCE). RESULTADOS: Foram observadas diferenças no desempenho quanto ao gênero, mas não quanto à idade, nos adultos saudáveis. Homens escolheram mais frequentemente a combinação com três dados, enquanto as mulheres preferiram quatro dados. Pacientes com TCE foram mais impulsivos, escolheram com menor frequência a combinação de três dados e tomaram decisões mais arriscadas. CONCLUSÃO: Por causa do rigoroso processo utilizado pra traduzir e adaptar o teste GTD e do poder de discriminação entre as amostras de adultos saudáveis e com TCE, a versão brasileira desse teste foi considerada satisfatória para utilização em pesquisa.Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP) Department of PsychobiologyUNIFESP, Department of PsychobiologySciEL

    Aging and decision making: How aging affects decisions under uncertainty

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    In an aging society, it becomes more and more important to understand how aging affects decision making. Older adults have to face many situations that require consequential financial decisions. In the present study, we examined the effects of aging on decisions in two domains of uncertainty: risk and ambiguity. For this purpose, a group of young and older adults played a card game which was composed of risky and ambiguous conditions. In the risk condition, participants knew the probabilities to win or loose the game (i.e. full information), whereas in the ambiguous condition, these probabilities were unknown (thus, there was lack of information). When confronted with risky decisions, the behaviour of older and young adults (measured by the number of times participants chose a gamble instead of a sure amount of money) did not differ. In contrast, under ambiguity, there were significant age-effects in decision making: older people were less ambiguity-averse than young subjects. We conclude that there exist differences in uncertainty-processing between young and older adults, and discuss possible explanations of these differences

    Decision-making impairment in long term opiate users

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    The overall aim of this PhD thesis was to conduct a comprehensive investigation of decision-making impairment in long term opiate users, using three studies. The first study aimed to determine the extent of the decision-making impairment and to establish whether other co-morbid factors impacted on the severity of this deficit. Using meta-analysis, the results indicated that opiate use is associated with relatively severe decision-making impairment, and that co-morbid factors, such as head injury and poly-substance dependence did not significantly change the magnitude of the impairment. Furthermore, the decision-making impairment in opiate users was not mitigated by abstinence, and the duration of opiate use and the duration of abstinence did not have a significant impact on size of the impairment. The second study analysed whether the somatic marker hypothesis, an emotion-based model of decision-making, could provide an explanation for the decision-making impairment in opiate users. This empirical study found that, although decision-making was impaired in a group of long term opiate users relative to a group of healthy controls, this impairment was not due to reduced emotional responsiveness, nor an inability to form anticipatory warning signals (i.e., somatic markers), as measured by the skin conductance response. Notably, stronger somatic responses when contemplating making disadvantageous choices were associated with worse decision-making in opiate users, which does not support the predictions of the somatic marker model of decision-making. Finally, the third study analysed decision-making under conditions of risk, to determine whether the impairment in opiate users was restricted to certain types of decision-making. This empirical study found that opiate users, although impaired in decision-making under conditions of ambiguity, were not impaired on decision making tasks involving calculable risk, relative to healthy controls. This study also demonstrated that opiate users’ decisions were not driven by an increased responsiveness to reward. Together, the results of this thesis suggest that opiate users are particularly impaired in situations of decision-making under ambiguity, but not risk, and this is not due to impairment in emotional processing. This has implications for the treatment of opiate users, who may need additional training to appropriately utilise physiological signals to make adaptive decisions. The results of this thesis may therefore be used to inform treatment practice to better support opiate users during ambiguous decision-making situations in daily life

    Multiple Sclerosis Decreases Explicit Counterfactual Processing and Risk Taking in Decision Making

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    Deficits in decision making (DM) are commonly associated with prefrontal cortical damage, but may occur with multiple sclerosis (MS). There are no data concerning the impact of MS on tasks evaluating DM under explicit risk, where different emotional and cognitive components can be distinguished.Methods: We assessed 72 relapsing-remitting MS (RRMS) patients with mild to moderate disease and 38 healthy controls in two DM tasks involving risk with explicit rules: (1) The Wheel of Fortune (WOF), which probes the anticipated affects of decisions outcomes on future choices; and (2) The Cambridge Gamble Task (CGT) which measures risk taking. Participants also underwent a neuropsychological and emotional assessment, and skin conductance responses (SCRs) were recorded.Results: In the WOF, RRMS patients showed deficits in integrating positive counterfactual information (p <0.005) and greater risk aversion (p <0.001). They reported less negative affect than controls (disappointment: p = 0.007; regret: p = 0.01), although their implicit emotional reactions as measured by post-choice SCRs did not differ. In the CGT, RRMS patients differed from controls in quality of DM (p = 0.01) and deliberation time (p = 0.0002), the latter difference being correlated with attention scores. Such changes did not result in overall decreases in performance (total gains).Conclusions: The quality of DM under risk was modified by MS in both tasks. The reduction in the expression of disappointment coexisted with an increased risk aversion in the WOF and alexithymia features. These concomitant emotional alterations may have implications for better understanding the components of explicit DM and for the clinical support of MS patients

    Decision Making under Risk Condition in Patients with Parkinson’s Disease: A Behavioural and fMRI Study

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    Decision Making and Risk Propensity in Individuals with Tendencies towards Specific Internet-Use Disorders.

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    The uncontrolled use of specific Internet applications is increasingly recognized as a mental health issue. Gaming disorder, which is one subtype of specific Internet-use disorders (sIUDs), has been included in the ICD-11 as disorder due to addictive behaviors. Addictive disorders are assumed to be accompanied by cognitive deficits as indicated by weaker performance in executive function and risky decision-making tasks. This study investigates risky decision-making in individuals with tendencies towards sIUDs including gaming, online buying-shopping, and social-networksuse disorders. A total of 293 individuals participated in the study. Based on specific screening instruments, the participants were assigned to a group with tendencies towards sIUD or a control group. Participants completed a risky decision-making task and questionnaires assessing risk-taking propensity, impulsivity, psychopathology, and perceived stress. The group with sIUD tendencies showed higher attentional impulsivity and higher levels of depression and anxiety compared to the control group. The groups did not differ in decision making and risk propensity. Decision making did not have significant effects on sIUD symptoms. Risk for developing sIUDs does not appear to be accompanied by altered general decision-making tendencies. Rather, psychological (pre-)load and attentional deficits appear to be relevant features in uncontrolled use of the Internet.post-print673 K

    Decreased modulation by the risk level on the brain activation during decision making in adolescents with internet gaming disorder

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    Greater impulse and risk-taking and reduced decision-making ability were reported as the main behavioral impairments in individuals with internet gaming disorder (IGD), which has become a serious mental health issue worldwide. However, it is not clear to date how the risk level modulates brain activity during the decision-making process in IGD individuals. In this study, 23 adolescents with IGD and 24 healthy controls (HCs) without IGD were recruited, and the balloon analog risk task (BART) was used in a functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment to evaluate the modulation of the risk level (the probability of balloon explosion) on brain activity during risky decision making in IGD adolescents. Reduced modulation of the risk level on the activation of the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) during the active BART was found in IGD group compared to the HCs. In the IGD group, there was a significant negative correlation between the risk-related DLPFC activation during the active BART and the Barratt impulsivity scale (BIS-11) scores, which were significantly higher in IGD group compared with the HCs. Our study demonstrated that, as a critical decision-making-related brain region, the right DLPFC is less sensitive to risk in IGD adolescents compared with the HCs, which may contribute to the higher impulsivity level in IGD adolescents
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